The Asia-Pacific Journal | Japan Focus Volume 14 | Issue 7 | Number 7 | Article ID 4875 | Apr 01, 2016

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Through the Korean Wave Looking Glass: Gender,Consumerism, Transnationalism, Tourism Reflecting Japan-Korea Relations in Global East Asia

Millie Creighton

Abstract

This article explores effects of the Korean Wavein Japan in the areas of gender relations,tourism, and Korea-Japan relations. It firstlooks at Korean Wave fandom among "middle-aged" women in Japan and maintains that thepopularity of Korean male stars reflectswomen's discontent with hegemonic genderrelations in Japan. It then explores tourism'srole in building cultural contact betweenKoreans and Japanese. Finally, it discusses howthe Korean Wave created communicativevenues for Korean and Japanese despite long-standing historical tensions between Korea andJapan such as the Dokdo-Takeshima conflict.

Introduction

This article explores the Korean Wave, calledH a l l y u i n K o r e a n o r H a n r y u 1

(https://apjjf.org/#_edn1) in Japanese, as alooking glass through which Korea-Japanrelations are reflected. The use of the phrase'through the Korean Wave looking glass'alludes to Lewis Carroll's (2003[1871])Through the Looking Glass in which, for Alice,the looking glass is no longer a tool that showsone's visual self image but also grants newways of seeing people, relationships, andworlds. It explores the Korean Wave's influenceon Japanese imaging, imaginings, andunderstandings of Korea, Japan-Korearelations, and on the staging of Korea-Japanrelations in the temporal period coinciding withthe Wave.

The term Hallyu (or Hanryu) can be translated

as: The Korean "flow" or "flows". Globalizationis often discussed in terms of flows, as inAppardurai's (1996) framework of five non-isotopic (occurring independently butpotentially interrelated) transnational flows,namely e thnoscapes , mediascapes ,technoscapes, financescapes, and ideoscapes.Hallyu has been extensively discussed in termsof media, technology, and economic flows,notably the burgeoning financial returns toSouth Korea from the popularity of Koreancreative cultural products elsewhere. Hallyubrought more attention to South Korea,creating interest among consumers in learningabout Korean culture, and so potentiallygaining greater understanding of philosophicalideas underlying Korean culture. However,there is relatively little scholarship on howHallyu relates to flows of people, or morespecifically the cultural effects of the flow ofordinary Koreans traveling outside Korea. Thisarticle does so, showing how Hallyu intersectswith Korea-Japan relations at an historicmoment through the increased flows of Koreanpeople traveling outside Korea, and adding the'ethnoscape' element of transnational flows toHallyu.

The most noteworthy aspect of the "KoreaBoom" in Japan was that it seemed an 'aboutface.' Korea had not been particularly popularin the Japanese imagination before 2003 whenthe Korean Wave reached Japan although other- predominately "Western"- countries were. Upuntil the 1990s favoured destinations forJapanese tourism tended to involve European,North American, and Australian venues that fit

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conceptualizations of the West that Japan hadsought to emulate. Few Japanese seemedinterested in visiting Korea, and many had animage of Korea as less developed, and henceperhaps less desirable, than the countries theywished to visit, (Moon 2009).2 In some cases,discriminatory attitudes towards Korea andKoreans persisted. These seemed to shift withthe Korean Wave. Many Japanese beganstudying the Korean language and engaging intourism to South Korea. Local Korean stores,restaurants, and tea shops within Japan weresought out by Japanese consumers, oftenlooking to Korea for the "wisdom of the Orient"in everything from herbal teas to cosmetics.

As a popular culture phenomenon, the KoreanWave spread more cultural understandingamong ordinary Japanese, than many politicalor government programs promoting suchcultural understanding, and it positivelyinfluenced Japan-Korea relations and themutual imagining of the "other." The Japaneseinterest in Hanryu also had a strong gendercomponent, affecting Japanese tourism toSouth Korea, and the flows of South Koreans toJapan. These issues are pertinent to thecontemporary moment when Korea-Japanrelations can suddenly shift between improvingand worsening.

Popular Cul ture , Consumer ism,Transnationalism, Tourism and Flows ofPeople

The Korean Wave shows popular culture andconsumer culture as entwined. While selling toconsumers involves a profit motive, people'sengagement in consumerism can also be ameans of showing personal identity, orconnectedness–a means of linking selves toothers in social relationships (Creighton 1994).This self-fashioning also occurs when things areintroduced for consumption from othercultures. Cultures do not simply take things infrom elsewhere, but attach local uses andmeanings to them (D. Miller 1995, Howes 1996,

Creighton 1991, 1992, 1993) and Korean Wavetourism is a good example.

The Korean Wave sparked new forms oftourism and turned South Korea into a majortourist destination for Japanese, initially so-called "middle-aged women," and later youngerwomen among whom the trend has persisted.In the beginning, much of this was "dramatourism" to sites shown in serialized televisiondramas or movies (Creighton 2009), and laterbecame generalized shopping outings ortourism for cosmetics and esthetic treatments(L. Miller 2006).3 Korean esthetic treatments,known as esute in Japanese, including suchpractices as using fine threads to remove small- often nearly unnoticeable - hair from faces orarms, became popular among Japanese women.

The South Korean government banned theimportation of Japanese popular culture toSouth Korea between 1978 and 1999 (Morris2005:12), fearing that Japanese cultureproducts would dominate the Korean culturalscene. When this ban was lifted in 1999, ratherthan a one-way flow of Japanese popularculture inundating South Korea, Koreanpopular culture also flowed into Japan. TheKorean Wave also followed South Korea's fullflowering into an advanced developed economyand full-fledged consumer society in the 1990s(Kendall 1998, Nelson 2000), just when Japanentered decades of recession. The Korean Wavealso occurred when Korean people could crossnational borders more easily than before, bothdue to increasing affluence in South Korea andbecause the South Korean government liftedlegal restrictions on South Koreans travelingabroad in 1988,4 meaning that South Koreanscould increasingly travel abroad as tourists.Koreans crossing national borders for workpurposes also often engage in tourist pursuitswhile abroad, showing that the divisionbetween work travel and tourism is not clear.

The Korea Boom in Japan–The Good, theNot so Good, and the Sometimes Ugly

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The Korean Wave first washed ashore in Japanin 2003 with a serialized drama, Winter Sonata(Fuyu no Sonata in Japanese). As it was re-televised in 2004, the Korean Wave (a phraseused for the transnational flow of Koreancultural products both within Japan andelsewhere) flooded Japan, ushering in a "KoreaBoom" (a phrase used specifically in Japan toencompass both the Korean Wave andpopular i ty o f anyth ing Korean thataccompanied it). By the end of 2004, Japanbecame the biggest importer of Korean filmsand dramas in the world, accounting for anestimated 70 per cent of all Korean film exports(Shim 2008:21). The young Korean male star ofWinter Sonata, Pae Yongjun, rose to stellarstatus in Japan. His image became ubiquitous;his face was used to sell nearly everythingimaginable (Fig. 1). While his surname is Pae(sometimes also romanized as Bae) he wasgiven a designation in Japan both respectful yetendearing, Yon-sama, based on his given nameplus the highly honorific suffix -sama. Thenomenclature of utilizing only the given name(followed by sama) is used in Japan for peopleseen as ranking extremely highly, such asmembers of the imperial family. Yon-samabecame the espoused idol of female fan clubsand was projected as the ideal male type,particularly among older (than him) women, socalled "middle aged women," a problematicdesignation that I will discuss shortly.

Figure 1. A poster image of Pae Yong Junstands near advertising and a storefront inthe Insa-dong shopping area of Seoul(Photo by Millie Creighton)

The "Korea Boom" sparked a Korean language-learning craze. Korean language classes wereavailable in Japan. For example, NHK, Japan'seducational broadcasting station, offeredKorean and other language classes, but it wasnot a "trendy" language to study until the"Korea Boom." Some magazines offered a freenew Korean DVD in each issue for their Hanryufans often featuring Yon-sama's image on thecover. New stores selling Korean productsopened, and shops run by Resident-Koreans inJapan suddenly became featured topics onJapanese talk and variety shows. Hirata(2008:143) attributes the 36 per cent jump inJapanese tourism to South Korea in 2004 over2003 to Japanese fandom of Winter Sonata.Many of these Japanese tourists visited the

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Korean sites where Winter Sonata was filmed(Creighton 2009).

Japan had spent a century and a half (sinceentry into the Meiji Era starting in1868) tryingto "catch up" with the West. Thus Japaneseinterest in traveling to foreign countries tendedto focus on Europe and North America, alongwith Australia and New Zealand . ManyJapanese were also aware that in Korea therewas bitterness from the period when Korea wasa colony of Japan, from 1910 to 1945. Thus,Korea was not a venue of desired imagining forJapan before the Korean Wave.

It is also pertinent to consider the effects of theKorean Wave on one of Japan's largest minoritygroups, people of Korean descent. In Japanesethis group of people are called ZainichiKankokujin or Zainichi Koreans (in whichZainichi means "present in Japan") and oftenreferred to in English as Resident Koreans.Their political, cultural, and economic rightshave been seriously hampered in Japan. TheJapanese state officially maintained that Japanwas a homogenous nation (tanitsu minzoku) ofone people, one culture, and one language until1997 (Creighton 1995, 2003 and Levin 2001),after which it began to officially recognize long-existing minority groups.5 By that time ResidentKoreans had already been present for severalgenerations, now stretching for over a century.Resident Koreans are part of Japanese societybut are not granted the same rights asJapanese citizens because (or so it is claimed)citizenship is not based on the principle of birthin the country (jus soli) but from biologicaldescent from citizens (jus sanguinis).

The Korean Wave fostered more positiveattitudes not only towards South Korea andKorean traditions and culture, but also towardsResident Koreans. "Koreatowns" in Japan beganto attract mainstream Japanese and ResidentKoreans became more common in the Japanesemainstream festivals such as Tanabata (theStar Festival)6 or summer festivals known in

Japan as matsuri. Stalls selling Korean foodssuch as bibimbap, chapch'ae, and kimchi run byResident Koreans became a welcome additionto festival offerings in Japan.

Around the time when the Korean Wave wasimmensely popular in Japan, the twogovernments planned a campaign for 2005 torecognize the 40th anniversary of normalizationof relations. This plan involved a year-longseries of events, promoted as the "Japan-Korea(or if in Korea "Korea-Japan") Friendship Year."Many of the events for the year in Japan drewon the "Korea Boom" and in particular WinterSonata and its star Yon-sama. One of the earlyevents of the "Friendship Year" was a Koreanlanguage competition for Japanese, which washosted by the Korean Embassy in Tokyo, wherecontestants had to memorize and performscripts from Winter Sonata in the originalKorean.

However, the festive mood soon cooled largelybecause of conflicts surrounding territorialclaims to a small and mostly uninhabited islandcalled Dokdo in Korean and Takeshima inJapanese. At the popular culture level Hanryufans in Japan continued to pursue Koreandramas, pop music, and tourism to SouthKorea, thus suggesting that popular culture hasdone a better job of promoting positivea t t i t u d e s a n d i n v o l v e m e n t s t h a ngovernmentally orchestrated campaigns.

Moreover, the Korean Wave made positiveinfluences on Japan-Korea relations there was abacklash against it, namely, an anti-KoreanWave movement called ken-hanryu in Japanesemeaning "against Hanryu" or the "I/we hateHanryu" movement. Bookstores were floodedwith publications claiming to be sick of Hanryu.Some of this was simply complaining thatdaytime television was now so saturated withKorean dramas – not all of which were higherquality-that some Japanese actors complainedthey could not get acting jobs because therewas little else on. In more severe forms,

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bigoted jabs at the Korean Wave included anti-Korean commentary, insults or degradingremarks about Koreans, and these wereextended to Koreans in Japan, who wereinsulted or harassed under the guise of ken-hanryu commentary.

Some people suggested that the Korean Wavemade Japan-Korea relations worse because ofthe anti-Hanryu backlash. I consider this claima misunderstanding of the phenomenon andcounter-phenomenon. Some actions of bigotrywere engaged in by individuals expressingforms of discriminatory and harassingbehaviour but that does not make the KoreanWave the cause of this bigotry. The popularityof the Korean Wave may have seemedthreatening. A recent spate of books publishedin Japan expressing anti-Korean sentiments,along with other negative portrayals of Korea,often feed on anxieties within Japan over itsprolonged recession. Japan has beeneconomically declining from its previously highpinnacle in the 1980s and lost its status as theworld's second largest economy, and the senseof South Korea doing well economically is asource of anxiety for some. Japanese also fearNorth Korea and its potential for aggression ornuclear attack, which also feeds into anti-Korean sentiment.

The Korean Wave remained popular for adecade after its arrival in Japan, although notas much as at its height, and often with shiftingfoci. In recent years, K-Pop rather than K-drama has become much more important,especially among younger Japanese fans. Theperformer Psy, for example, gained significantmedia attention in Japan as elsewhere, andremains one of the main faces of K-Wave inJapan into the second decade of the 21s t

century. Even past the height of the KoreanWave new magazines or newspapers, such asK-Fun, became popular and new K-Pop barsgained a hold on the evening entertainmentscene in major Japanese cities as well. At onepopular K-Wave bar in Kobe, where walls are

adorned with posters with Korean writing,customers can choose newly invented cocktailsthat use now-popular forms of Korean alcoholin Japan such as makkoli mixed with pineappleand strawberries; meanwhile Japanese "cabaretgirls," often scantily clothed, dance to K-Popsongs.

Re-Envisioning Gender via the KoreanWave

Throughout its presence in Japan, the KoreanWave has often involved constructs of what is"sexy," is utilized to project gender images forboth men and women, and to voice ideas aboutgender relations. These became publicallyvisible gender possibilities.

Japan's "middle-aged" women putting genderon public view

When Yon-sama arrived in Japan on April 3,2004, an estimated five thousand female fansflocked to Tokyo's Narita International Airportto greet him. By contrast, when the soccer starDavid Beckham arrived, Mori notes that fivehundred fans turned out to greet him (Mori2008:130, Creighton 2009:28). What grabbedthe Japanese media attention was not so muchthe number of fans but their status as "middle-aged women." Much has been written aboutthese women's infatuation with Korean starsincluding Chikako Nagayama's article in thisissue, but here I address the concept of"middle-aged women" in Japan. Japanesesociety has long maintained set concepts of thelife cycle and proper behavior for each stage.Such expectations still hold more strongly thanin many Western countries. By theseconstructs, women are defined as reaching"middle-age" and "old age" younger than theirmale counterparts, and younger than oftenconceptualized in the West. The so-called"middle-age" for women begins around 30 or intheir 30s. When, as a resident in Japan, Iturned 30, the ward office in which I lived sentme (as for all women turning 30) a set ofwrapped gifts for my birthday, consisting of

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grooming products, health books and medicalinformation. On an attached calligraphygreeting around the package was written:Chūnen no onna ni natta kara (because nowyou have become a middle-aged woman). Therewas nothing subtle about the way turning 30marked women's initiation into middle-agestatus. My Japanese husband turned 30 thesame year but nothing was sent to him: menare not considered "middle-aged" in Japan untilyears later. In short, "middle-aged" women byJapanese standards, means anyone from 30 to60 (and once being "old-aged" for womenbegan in one's 40s).

Many Hanryu fans were in their 30s, others intheir 40s and 50s, and some were in their 60s.What also marked the idea of "middle-aged"was the expectation that such women bemarried with children. The media made greatfun of these women parading their infatuationwith a foreign younger male star, but ratherthan silence their interest in the Korean Wave,the women became bolder in their K-Wavefandom. When Yon-sama visited Japan again inNovember 2007, with an image make over aftera lengthy body-building stint, to promote aphoto exhibit of his bare upper torso and newpectoral muscles at the posh Mori Towercomplex in Tokyo, thousands of femaleJapanese fans again flocked to the airport andhis hotel. So many women climbed up the outerwalls of his hotel that they were injured andsome women had to be taken to the hospital.Asked by a journalist what he thought of allthis, Yon-sama replied that he hoped thewomen were okay and none had been hurtbadly. His comments reaffirmed his appeal as akind and considerate male.

These "middle-aged" Japanese womenpresented their reasons for liking Yon-samaand other Korean male stars as more than theirphysical attractiveness. They saw them asrepresentations of a different sort ofmasculinity that involved being kind, sweet,and sensitive especially to women with whom

they were involved. Via the Korean Wave,married Japanese middle-aged women couldfantasize about a different type of relationshipwith a possible partner, one more romanticthan what their marriage and daily life offered.By celebrating their fandom of younger Koreanmale stars in the public spotlight in Japan, theywere also sending messages to men, includingtheir husbands, about the type of relationshipsthey wished to have. Many of these women gotmarried at a time when, as a Japaneseproverbial expression suggested, for men,"wives are like air," meaning something menabsolutely needed but could take for granted,not something they were expected to thinkabout or treat with consideration.

Figure 2. The store called "Hanryu IdolPark" in the Shin-Okubo area of Tokyo(Photo by Millie Creighton)

Through the Korean Wave, women weresuggesting that maybe men could re-envisionnew forms of gender relations in which they didnot take their wives and dating partners forgranted. In their pursuit of Hanryu fandom andfantasies and through buying Hanryu consumerofferings (Fig. 2), women were displaying, evenif only playfully, an interest in men outside ofthe social categories of men with whom societyexpected them to be involved. In other words,

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these women expressed ideas of gender andgendered involvements subversive to theexpected conventions of Japanese society,which reflects Rita Felski's suggestion thatwomen's involvement in consumerism candisrupt "the sanctity of the private sphere,encouraging women to indulge in their owndesires in defiance of their husbands and oftraditional forms of moral and religiousauthority" (Felski 1995:74).

In an essay written for the Japan Times, Swisseconomist Jean-Pierre Lehmann (2002)characterized Japan as a society run by old menfor the benefit of old men. Status hierarchies inJapan depict men as having a higherhierarchical status than women, older men ashaving a higher hierarchical status thanyounger men, and Japanese as higher thanKoreans. Through Hanryu fandom, Japanesemiddle-aged women were inverting thesehierarchies, publically professing a preferencefor Korean over Japanese males, and youngermen over older ones. Inverting these twohierarchies also raised the possibility that thethird hierarchy-of men over women-should notbe treated as "natural" either (Creighton2009:33-34). In their fandom these womenwere gaining public attention, giving voice to acategory of people rarely in the news or thepublic mind. Japanese media still tends tohighlight males in public and political spheres.Japanese marketing and consumer enterprisesdo highlight young women, particularly those inthe years before marriage, based on an existingbelief, even if not always true, that althoughtheir incomes are low they reside with and/ordepend on their parents. It was also previouslyassumed that young female consumers pushedtrends forward, particularly for consumerismlinked to popular culture. Married, middle-agedwomen moved from the hidden recesses ofsociety's interests to center stage via theirhighly visible involvements in the Korean Wave,gaining a public means of voicing their desiresand frustrations.

Gender-bending, androgyny, and re-visualizingmaleness and femaleness

The Korean Wave interfaced with other re-imaginings of gender in popular and consumercultures of East and South East Asia. One trendwas the shift to an emphasis on male bodies inmedia, and for advertising goods, services, andentertainments. Previously, as in the West,advertising predominately relied on the femalebody, using semi-clothed female bodies to eliciterotic desire, which was sublimated intoconsumer desire. In media, female bodies werepreviously the ones from which clothing wasremoved or removed first, with males oftenshown as undressing them. The Korean Wavewas part of a trend that reversed this. Newmagazines emphasized the male body,especially the naked upper torsos of youngmen. Ads switched to greater use of malebodies, including some in which both men andwomen were shown, with the male body oftenrevealing more flesh than the female one. Thisreflects a shift from thinking of the female bodyas innately the one to evoke eroticism orsexuality, and instead recognizing thepotentially sensuous nature of the male body.This expansion of diverse gender imaging inconsumer p resen ta t i ons occur redsimultaneously with the Wave.

Long after the initial interest in the KoreanWave by Japan's so called middle-aged women,young unmarried women in their 20s and lateteens have continued to travel to South Koreafor shopping trips and beauty consultations.South Korea is financially a feasible venue foryoung unmarried Japanese working women onlimited salaries. The long existing Koreancosmetic company now known as Etude House,which was re-launched during the "KoreanBoom" in 2005, in particular captured theimagination and purchases of Japanese women.Etude House did so for its beauty products andalso provided non-traditional versions of genderimagery in selling cosmetics.

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One consumer cosmetic campaign involved thepopular Japanese tarento (talent or celebrity)known as Ikko. Ikko rose to fame in Japan'sfashion and cosmetic industry as a hair stylistbut later her/his beauty and gender bendingresulted in pan-Asian popularity. The nameIkko may sound familiar to Japanese as afemale Japanese name which can mean "firstgirl." Born male, Ikko is a cross-dressing, cross-gendering celebrity who performs femininityand she/he has become the image of "ideal"femaleness for women to emulate. Ikko is also abridge in Japan-Korea relations, because Ikko isa major celebrity image for a South Koreancosmetics company despite the fact that she/heis Japanese. Ikko's image in South Koreabecame nearly as ubiquitous as Yon-sama's inJapan, and became a common sight inKoreascapes--broad spaces and arenas whereKoreanness can be visually encountered andinteracted with--within Japan such as in Koreanmarkets and so-called Koreatown areas.

There is historical precedent for the idea ofIkko. In Japan's all male Kabuki theater, menwho specialize in playing female roles known asonnagata were and are often considered theheight of femininity and represent femalenessas an art form to which mundane women canonly aspire (Dalby 1983). Moreover, Ikko wasfar from the sole male model used to sellcosmetics to women. Co-occurring with theKorean Wave's attention to male beauty, thefashion and cosmetic industries began usingmale models to advertise to women by showingmen wearing women's clothing or cosmetics.This trend remains quite common: male modelsand celebrities also commonly model hairc o l o r i n g s f o r w o m e n ' s u s e . S o m eadvertisements show groups of young Koreanmen (Fig. 3), similar to those seen in theKorean Wave imagery, with different haircolors, which are used as selection templatesfor women choosing hair colors. With theKorean Wave's entry into gender play, it doesnot seem inconsistent to young East Asianconsumers to see men wearing and presenting

beauty and hair products for use by women.

Figure 3. Many young Korean men work inHallyu related jobs in Japan (Photo byMillie Creighton).

Flows of Koreans and Koreascapes inJapan and Korea-Japan Tensions overDokdo-Takeshima

"Koreanness" could long be encountered inJapan, but more areas staging Koreannessemerged with the Korean Wave. I call theseKoreascapes, areas that present, visuallyhighlight, and represent elements ofKoreanness, in Japan. The popularity of theKorean Wave resulted not only in increasingflows of Japanese to South Korea, it alsoresulted in increasing flows of Koreans to Japanto work in these Koreascapes, to seek work inindustries providing Japanese consumers withelements of the Korean Wave, or to combinework and tourism. Some existing areas weremarkets where members of Japan's ResidentKorean community shopped for Korean goods,including an Osaka area marked by a signlabeling it in romanized letters, "Koreatown."Another Osaka area known as Tsuruhach, has alarge Korean market, reminiscent of markets inlarge cities of South Korea. Some Japanese didvisit these areas before the "Korea Boom," but

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the Korean Wave made them popular for manyJapanese.

Another area staging Koreanness in Japan thatbecame more popular with the Korean Wave,was a theme park named Nango Son inMiyazaki Prefecture in Kyushu, thesouthernmost of Japan's four main islands(Graburn 2009:26-33). The location highlightedlong historic ties between Japan and Korea viaKyushu, where ferries connect Japan andKorea, providing less expensive transportationfor people and goods. The park had greatsuccess for a few years because of the KoreanWave, then suffered from tensions in the Japan-Korea relationship over the Dokdo-Takeshimaissue when the numbers of Japanese visitingbegan to drop.

Figure 4. A Korean Restaurant in Shin-Okubo area (Photo by Millie Creighton)

Notable among the newly created Koreascapeshas been the Shin-Okubo area of Tokyo, whichwas transformed into something highlyreminiscent of street shopping areas of Seoul.The Shin-Okubo area was formerly considereda seedy district, linked to prostitution. Ithoused a large number of hotels, often with"colourful" or "flamboyant" room interiors, atl o w e r r o o m r a t e s t h a n m o s t T o k y o

accommodations that were understood as "lovehotels." As the Korean Wave became morepopular in Japan, many of the shops and otherbuildings of this area were bought or rented byKoreans or others involved in marketing theKorean Wave within Japan. Shin Okubo wastransformed, with shops and stalls sellingKorean goods and featuring Korean popularculture, along with new Korean restaurants andcafes (Fig. 4).7 A large retail store opened,called, Hanryu hyakkaten (Fig. 5). In Japanese,hyakkaten literally means, "100 things store"but came to be used for "department store"(Creighton 1992:42). Although not an actual"department store" according to the definitionsof Japan's Department Store Association (Nihonhyakkaten kyōkai), the name "HanryuDepartment Store" suggested its size andmassive appeal. One large Korean restaurantthat became very popular was called,Taishikan, the Japanese word for "Embassy." Itmight be called "poplumatic" for the merging ofpolitical and popular culture. People flocked tothis particular restaurant because K-Idols wentthere, allowing Japanese fans the possibility ofa K-star sighting. This new Koreascape also putlarge numbers of Koreans on view, in particularyoung Korean men who came to work there.These young Korean men were often positionedoutside establishments holding signboards ortalking to customers in Japanese. At outdoorstations these men gave demonstrations oftraditional Korean sweet making, explainingthe process in Japanese, in a manner similar toInsa-dong in Seoul, a now touristic area whereKorean traditional goods, calligraphy, andfoods are displayed and sold. Additionally,young Koreans came to audition for media andentertainment jobs. Of course, many of thesenewly arriving Koreans also engaged insightseeing while in Japan before returning toKorea.

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Figure 5. Hanryu Department Store in theShin-Okubo area (Photo by Mill ieCreighton)

Some of the Koreascapes have recently sharplydeclined in popularity. Whereas for nearly adecade, from 2004 to 2014, Korean dramaswere prevalent on television and at rentaloutlets, the numbers have dropped since then.The Shin-Okubo Koreascape suddenly shrunkto only a quarter of what it was, with 75 percent of the area's shops closing, including boththe Taishikan and the Hanryu DepartmentStore. The "Korea Boom" in Japan has also beenlinked to rising tensions between Japan andSouth Korea, particularly over the Dokdo-Takeshima island controversy.

Dokdo-Takeshima tensions

Both Korea and Japan have had long historicinterface with Dokdo-Takeshima island andcitizens in both countries hold strong feelings

that the island is part of their national territory.For Koreans, Japanese claims to the island areemotionally reminiscent of the Japanesetakeover of Korea during the colonial period,while Japanese, particularly those fromShimane Prefecture are acutely aware of longhistoric local involvement with the island.Debates over the possession of this island oraffect popular culture, consumerism, and theKorean Wave. One example is the "FriendshipYear" of 2005 to recognize the 40th anniversaryof the normalization of relations, making muchuse of the Korean Wave, which was derailed byother waves of hostility over Dokdo-Takeshima,resulting in the cancellation of many events.

The island issue often symbolizes a variety oftensions over other historic issues. Post-colonial attempts to deal with a sense oftrauma and attempted erasure of Koreancultural identity have taken many forms inSouth Korea. One of these was the dramaticdemolition of the former Japanese GovernmentGeneral Building, which housed the NationalMuseum of Korea from 1986 to 1995. Chun(2012) explains that this building was not onlydestroyed, it was decapitated, with the centralpeak area undergoing a symbolic beheading inattempts to eradicate colonial memories. Whenthe National Museum of Korea was re-built, itsopening exhibit staged Dokdo as the emotionalcore of Korea. The museum's first major exhibitwas entitled, "Dokdo, Our Land for Which WeLong," showing that Dokdo, despite being asmall island where few Koreans have everbeen, may have emotional attachment forKoreans, but Chun also notes that suchattachment, to the extent it exists, is the resultof official campaigns rather than somethingthat has simply occurred (Chun 2012).

Such emotionalism over Dokdo has enteredconsumer culture. While in Seoul over thesummer of 2009, I noticed Dunkin' Donutsselling T-shirts that both embraced SouthKorea's claim to the island and seemed toadvocate spreading the knowledge of it as

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South Korea's island. The T-shirts proclaim inromanization: "Do you know? [Dok-do] Dokdobelongs to Korea." These T-shirts are anexample of glocalization in transnationalconsumer culture. The T-shirts promotingSouth Korea's claim to the island were not partof the worldwide chain, nor of the originatingAmerican parent chain, and they certainly werenot part of Dunkin' Donuts in Japan. Ratherthey were a localized South Korean Dunkin'Donuts offering for South Korean consumers.

Conclusions: Ebbing Tide of Hanryu orRising Tide of Nationalist Sentiment?

The year 2015 marks the 50th anniversary ofthe normalization of South Korea-Japanrelations. What does the view through theKorean Wave looking glass suggest aboutJapan-South Korea re lat ions at th iscontemporary moment? I contend that theKorean Wave had a big and beneficial influenceon those relations, and on the mutual imaginingof people from the two countries. This wave ofpopular cu l ture , consumer ism, andtransnationalism between Japan and SouthKorea prompted an interest in South Koreaamong Japanese, and positively shifted theviews of many of them towards Korea, Koreans,and Resident Koreans of Japan. It promptedmany Japanese to travel to South Korea, andbrought flows of South Koreans to Japan. Thisincreasing interaction among ordinary peoplewas also influential in breaking downstereotypes of otherness for many. Theinterplay of the Korean Wave with Japanesepopular culture and consumerism opened newvenues for presentations of and dialogue aboutself-identities, gender and gender relationships,and possible new ways of conceptualizing andinteracting with other countries of Asia.

The anti-Korean activities were not directly aresponse to the Korean Wave or to ken-Hanryu,but were acts of anti-Korean harassmenttowards Koreans or Resident Koreans in Japan,by some Japanese who were threatened by the

Korean Wave's popularity. Tides come in andtides go out, and as all fashions, the KoreanWave in Japan seems to have ebbed with the"Korea Boom" may be completely gone. It is notyet clear how much of this is a popular culturefad that has run its course and how much aresult of a rising tide of nationalist sentiment.Certainly the number of anti-Hanryu books andalso anti-Korea books has increased. Pinchedby a prolonged recession of 20 years, manyJapanese respect the new affluence, consumerculture, and middle class lifestyle of SouthKorea, but may also feel frightened by it.

Japan held elections in December 2012 andPrime Minister Abe Shinzō took office at theend of 2012 with his cabinet's active rolebeginning with the parliamentary sessioncommencing in January 2013. Many analystssuggest his government rose to power becauseof people's desires for economic reforms giventhe persisting recession, but the Abegovernment is also very right-wing politically inways that often exacerbate rather than lessentensions between Japan and South Korea,8 andreveal issues such as the Dokdo -Takeshimadebate as a symbol of these tensions linked tohistorical memories. Even given the immenseeffects of the Korean Wave in Japan, thelegacies surrounding Japan's colonization byJapan–such as the Comfort Women andcontroversies over territory–cannot be resolvednor dissolved by elements of popular culturealone.

However they can help. Even though manyevents for the planned celebration of the 40th

anniversary of the normalization of Japan-SouthKorea relations did not fare well, at least theyear started more positively, thanks in part topopular culture, than did the 50th anniversaryyear 2015. Thus let us not forget that oncethere was a moment and a flow, lasting fornearly a decade, and brought about throughpopular culture, of increased interest amongJapanese about South Korea. That desire tolearn more about Korean culture and improve

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relations between the countries can be seenclearly through the Korean Wave looking glass.

Dr. Millie Creighton is an Associate Professorat the University of British Columbia. Herresearch interests include SocioculturalAnthropology, Japan, Japanese descentcommunities (Nikkei or Nikkeijin), Korea, Inter-Asian Relations, Identity, Consumerism,Popular and Mass Culture, Gender, Minorities,Work and Leisure. She has publishedextensively on Japanese consumer culture andpopular culture, including advertising andtourism, and also on issues of gender, diversityand minorities, as well as on Korean popularculture and the context of Japan's inter-Asianrelation. She is one of the Regional Presidentsof the World Association of Hallyu Studies(WAHS).

Recommended citation: Millie Creighton,"Through the Korean Wave Looking Glass:Gender, Consumerism, Transnationalism,Tourism Reflecting Japan-Korea Relations inGlobal East Asia", The Asia-Pacific Journal, Vol.14, Issue 7, No. 7, April 1, 2016.

Acknowledgements:

I would like to thank the Centre for KoreanResearch at the University of British Columbiafor providing research grants to explore theKorean Wave in Japan and the interface ofSouth Korea with South Asia and South EastAsia. I would also like to thank the Centre forJapanese Research at the University of BritishColumbia for research grants to further workon Japan. I also acknowledge the comments ofthe reviewers and an APJ editor utilized inrevising this article.

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Mary J. Ainslie, "K-dramas across Thailand: Constructions of Koreanness and Thainess bycontemporary Thai consumers." (https://apjjf.org/2016/07/Ainslie.html)

Chikako Nagayama, "Women's Desire, Heterosexual Norms and Transnational Feminism:(https://apjjf.org/2016/07/Nagayama.html)Kitahara Minori's Good-bye Hallyu." (https://apjjf.org/2016/07/Nagayama.html)

Jooyeon Rhee, "Gendering Multiculturalism: Representation of Migrant Workers and ForeignBrides in Korean Popular Films." (https://apjjf.org/2016/07/Rhee-2.html)

Dr. Millie Creighton is an Associate Professor at the University of British Columbia. Herresearch interests include Sociocultural Anthropology, Japan, Japanese descent communities(Nikkei or Nikkeijin), Korea, Inter-Asian Relations, Identity, Consumerism, Popular and MassCulture, Gender, Minorities, Work and Leisure. She has published extensively on Japaneseconsumer culture and popular culture, including advertising and tourism, and also on issuesof gender, diversity and minorities, as well as on Korean popular culture and the context ofJapan's inter-Asian relation. She is one of the Regional Presidents of the World Association ofHallyu Studies (WAHS).

Notes1 In this paper, the term "Hanryu" is used in some places when referring to Japan specificphenomena such as "Hanryu fans" and "ken-Hanryu" (anti-Korean Wave).2 In the years and decades before the Korean Wave some Japanese men engaged in so-called"sex tourism" to Korea or "Kisaeng tourism," often in conjunction with business trips to Korea.However, given its negative connotations and associations with behavior not officially

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condoned, it tended not to be openly acknowledged even if it was tacitly understood to behappening. Likewise, although referred to as "sex tourism" or "Kisaeng tourism," the focushad little or nothing to do with actual tourism or sight-seeing (see for example, Creighton2006, Hirata 2005, 2008 and Moon 2009).3 For example, L. Miller (2006:198-199) mentions Japanese tourism to South Korea for esuteor aesthetic beauty treatments.4 Both Komai (1995:112) and Gill (2001:46) discuss the increase in Korean workers orlaborers coming to Japan from Korea after 1988, with Gill linking it directly to the ability ofaverage South Koreans to get passports. Such Koreans from outside Japan are a differentcategory than Resident Koreans who comprise a long-existing minority group in Japan.5 Until 1997 the Japanese government maintained an official stance that Japan was ahomogenous society without minority groups. Resident Koreans although a long-existingcommunity in Japan were considered foreigners because they did not have Japanesecitizenship. (see Creighton 1995 "The Non-Vanishing Ainu: A Damming Development Project,Internationalization and Japan's Indigenous Other" The American Asian Review 13.2: 69-96,Creighton 2003 "May the Saru River Flow: The Nibutani Dam and the Resurging Tide of theAinu Identity Movement," in Joining Past and Future: Japan at the Millennium, ed. By DavidEdgington pp. 120-143, and Levin M. A. 2001 "Essential Commodities and Racial Justice:Using Constitutional Protection of Japan's Indigenous Ainu People to Inform Understandingsof the United States and Japan." New York University Journal of International Law andPolitics 33: 419-526).6 The Star Festival is linked to a myth about a weaver and a shepherd who were loversseparated by the gods and sent to distant parts of the universe but allowed to come intocontact once a year (when the stars representing them appear to come into close proximity).Korea also has its versions of this myth. Nonetheless the Tanabata as it is celebrated in Japanis considered to be a Japanese version of this festival.7 Hirata's (2005) book about Shin-Okubo in Korean, provides further discussion of its historyand development into an area associated with the Korean Wave and sought out by Japaneseas part of the Korea Boom in Japan.8 Examples include this government's attempts to backtrack on previous administration'sadmissions of misuse of so-called "Comfort Women," many or most of whom were Korean, inmilitary "sex stations" during World War II, and the removal of educational stipends ordeductions–allowed for all students living in Japan–from Resident Korean families whosetechnical affiliation is linked to North Korea.